This is MELA’s signature area of expertise. It exists because many of the questions that programmes, institutions, and policymakers need answers to cannot be addressed through conventional evaluation alone. Experimental approaches such as RCTs typically focus on a limited set of variables— control versus treatment to judge success or failure, and are often conducted by independent evaluators. While valuable, this approach is less suited to understanding how change unfolds over time in complex settings or to supporting ongoing programme improvement. In complex environments, decisions are often constrained not by a lack of data, but by a lack of understanding of how change is unfolding and what is influencing it.
To address this, MELA applies complexity-aware approaches as a participatory learning partner, examining programme mechanisms, tracing plausible contribution pathways and restraining factors, and surfacing behavioural, relational, and institutional change that would otherwise remain invisible. The emphasis is on producing learning that supports reflection, iteration, and adaptation to improve programme effectiveness over time.
Our services include:
- Outcome Mapping to track behavioural and relational change
- Outcome Harvesting to identify emergent and unintended outcomes
- Contribution Analysis to assess plausible influence pathways
- Systems-informed evaluation to examine interactions and feedback loops
